A few years ago, Katzenberg said, he’d come across Joe Exotic, the incarcerated zookeeper at the center of the Florida-noir series, and had considered making a show about him. But it never came to pass, and now he was in the same boat as everybody else, stuck at home, watching the hit program on Netflix.

The special powers of exotic animals seemed to be lingering on his mind. The press could hound him all they wanted but he didn’t scare easily, he explained. He leaned forward, took a pinch of his arm, and held it up to his computer’s camera. “This is rhino skin,” said Katzenberg.

In the days ahead, he will certainly need all the big rhino energy he can muster. On Monday, Katzenberg and his business partner Meg Whitman, the former chief executive officer of EBay, are overseeing the much-anticipated launch of Quibi, a short-form mobile video service that arrives into a crowded field of fierce competitors who are digging in for a long, bloody battle.

Quibi, which will eventually cost $5 a month with ads, or $8 without them, will roll out 175 shows this year. The kaleidoscopic slate of programming is a mix of comedic series, dramas, reality shows, and topical news programs – all of it serialized into brief episodes. The idea is to reach out and grab users’ attention for a few minutes at a time whenever they’re idly staring down at their phones. In one cooking competition, food is blasted out of a cannon onto participants’ faces. In another show, a sex therapist talks about how to date during a pandemic.

While Quibi can sometimes sounds like a film school fever dream, it’s one of the more ambitious projects to emerge in recent years from the crossroads of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. To date, the company has collected about $2 billion worth of investment, much of it coming from major media companies. It has written checks to some of the biggest celebrities in the world. Steven Spielberg and Bill Murray are contributors. “The first thing you have to understand is, if you are a storyteller and you work in Hollywood – movies, television, animation, I don’t care, any part of it – you are an entrepreneur,” said Katzenberg. “And that entrepreneurial spirit hasn’t been tapped in a while.”

Despite Katzenberg’s impressive track record in the entertainment business, plenty of competitors, critics and industry analysts are betting on Quibi to lose. “Our reaction out of the gate was: ‘I think this is gonna be pretty tough,'” said Stephen Beck, founder and managing partner of management consulting firm CG42. “Free short-form video on your mobile phone already exists, and you can get a lot of it by relatively big-name stars.” See, for example, YouTube.

Katzenberg said he has found some of the more pointed criticism of the yet-to-launch service downright amusing. In February, the New York Times published a lengthy essay by writer Dan Brooks entitled “What’s a Quibi? A Way to Amuse Yourself Until You’re Dead,” which argued that the service cynically aimed to exploit consumers’ already unhealthy addictions to smartphones. Katzenberg said that after reading the piece, he reached out to its author and set the guy up with a phone loaded with Quibi content. That’s Rhino Skin, buddy. (Brooks said in an email the shows he saw were “uneven.”)

“I asked my kids: ‘Are your friends watching stuff on their phones?’ They said: ‘Absolutely.’ So we wrote the script.”

On Feb. 2, Quibi ran a Super Bowl ad in which a bunch of bank robbers wait for their getaway driver, who is distracted mid-heist by a Quibi show on his phone. Tagline: “Episodes in 10 Minutes or Less.” In the weeks that followed, Katzenberg and his colleagues were planning to advertise heavily during other major sports events, including March Madness. The campaign was supposed to culminate with a star-studded premiere party at 3Labs in Culver City, California. All of it was conceived to generate a ton of free press.

Getting Quibi’s quirky-sounding name out as much as possible was important. Outside of the entertainment and media industries, few people knew what Quibi was. In a poll commissioned by the Hollywood Reporter and Morning Consult in March, 81% of adults said they’d heard little or nothing at all about Quibi.

But before Quibi could promote itself to America’s legions of live-sports viewers, the pandemic hit and the entire sports industry ground to a halt. Quibi would have to turn elsewhere for introductions en masse.

In mid-March, with businesses and schools shutting down around the country, Katzenberg, Whitman and the board discussed the possibility of delaying Quibi’s April 6 launch date. “We said, ‘OK, we can launch, but should we launch?'” Whitman told Bloomberg Television. “We’re not health-care professionals, we’re not first responders. But we thought what we do is inform, entertain and inspire. So we thought we could bring a little joy and light and levity to people’s challenges right now. So we decided to go.”

Rather than postponing, they tweaked the rollout. They decided to give away the service for free for the first 90 days, a way of appealing to cash-strapped viewers suddenly grappling with a dire economic situation. Quibi also shifted the focus of its advertising blitz away from live TV events and onto social media.Katzenberg and his colleagues have since rolled out a campaign in which the company is paying its series’ stars like Chrissy Teigen to hype Quibi on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

Meanwhile, many contributors in Hollywood are watching the launch with curiosity. Peter and Bobby Farrelly, the fraternal screenwriters known for comedies like “Dumb and Dumber” and “There’s Something About Mary,” have a Quibi show in the works, entitled “The Now,” starring Dave Franco and Bill Murray, which will premier in May. In separate phone interviews, the Farrelly Brothers said it was a little weird to make a film that needed a cliffhanger every 10 minutes, but ultimately that it was “a fun experiment.”

“I rarely watch things on my phone, certainly not television,” said Peter Farrelly. “So I asked my kids: ‘Are your friends watching stuff on their phones?’ They said: ‘Absolutely.’ So we wrote the script.”

While the new service may feel experimental, Katzenberg is quick to point out that Quibi has plenty of historical precedents. He cites Charles Dickens as a producer of Quibi-like narratives, as well as Dan Brown, the author of “The DaVinci Code.” Both writers, Katzenberg said, were masters of feeding audiences long stories in installments. For readers lacking time or self-discipline, that meant they could consume a sprawling, complex tale in brief increments over weeks or months without losing the plot.

Quibi’s kickoff comes not long after the debut of Disney+, the robust streaming service that arrived in the U.S. in November and quickly attracted more than 28 million subscribers. Disney can be a tough act to follow. Katzenberg should know. During the ’80s and early ’90s, he oversaw a major revival of Disney’s animation division. While he may have missed out on “Tiger King,” back in 1994, he found an epic feline hit in “The Lion King,” which went on to gross hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office for Disney and has since spawned an impressive litter of spinoff movies and shows. These days, “The Lion King” franchise is still hard at work, attracting streaming subscribers to Disney+. “They got 100 years, the greatest brands ever known, the most amazing library ever, and ‘The Mandalorian,'” said Katzenberg, referring to a popular Star Wars show.

Quibi, by contrast, has got some interesting mobile viewing technology, a large batch of unproven programming and some great expectations. Katzenberg said that of the 50 shows that Quibi will offer people in the first two weeks, he expects eight to 10 to go viral. “Meaning, in the same way we’re laughing about ‘Tiger King,'” he said. “You’re hearing about it through a connection. We’re not allowed to be around one another, but we are all still connected.”

Democratic and Republican voters alike seem to have grown sick of politicians dividing up voting districts in ways designed to favor one faction over the other. (Maps are redrawn every 10 years, at the time of the U.S. Census, typically by the party in power at the time.) In this stirring – and, more importantly for many, motivating – new film by Chris Durrance and Barak Goodman, we follow two such fights. The first takes place in Michigan, where activist Katie Fahey is shown leading the grass-roots anti-gerrymandering group Voters Not Politicians. The second battle takes place in Wisconsin, where a redistricting-reform lawsuit, spearheaded by married attorneys Nick Stephanopoulos and Ruth Greenwood, finds its way to the Supreme Court. You can easily Google the outcome of these stories, but it’s well worth watching the film, not just for the way in which Fahey, Stephanopoulos and Greenwood personify the passion of these crusades, but for the way that “Dragon” lays out, lucidly and compellingly, the history and practice of gerrymandering, and the reasons it’s worth taking up arms against it. PG-13. Available on demand and various streaming platforms. Contains brief strong language. 101 minutes.

– Michael O’Sullivan

– – –

Between Jennifer Kent’s “The Babadook” and Julia Ducournau’s “Raw,” women are proving dab hands at the burgeoning genre of elevated horror. Add one more name to that list: Malgorzata Szumowska, whose moody thriller “The Other Lamb” evokes everything from “Picnic at Hanging Rock” to “Midsommar” and “Martha Marcy May Marlene” in its depiction of ritualized hysteria. Raffey Cassidy delivers an impressive turn as Selah, a teenager born into an all-female cult that worships a leader called Shepherd (Michiel Huisman); as she begins to question her own fealty, she befriends the group’s most damaged and disobedient outcast, brilliantly played by Denise Gough. The slowly moving plot and studied mannerisms of “The Other Lamb” aren’t terribly arresting or original, but Szumowska suffuses it with high style, tasteful flourishes and a gorgeous gray-and-indigo palette. It’s a very pretty picture, even when things get ugly. Unrated. Available on demand and various streaming platforms. Contains nudity, disturbing images, violence and sexuality. 97 minutes.

– Ann Hornaday

– – –

“Coffee & Kareem,” stars Ed Helms and Terrence Little Gardenhigh as the title characters: the first a bumbling Detroit police officer, and the other a foul-mouthed fifth-grader and aspiring rap star who is determined to scuttle a romance between Coffee and his mom, played by Taraji P. Henson. The bad-pun title says it all about a formulaic romp that hits all the expected action-comedy beats, with plenty of obscenity, jokes about police violence and pedophilia and cartoonish violence played for laughs. Betty Gilpin appears in a thankless and utterly unsurprising supporting role. TV-14. Available on Netflix. Contains crude language, slapstick violence and some mature themes. 88 minutes.

– A.H.

– – –

Also streaming:

– “Almost Love” is a rom-com centering on a gay couple and their friends (Scott Evans, Kate Walsh, Augustus Prew, Michelle Buteau, Colin Donnell, Zoe Chao, Christopher Gray, John Doman and Patricia Clarkson) who are navigating the relationship jungle at the midpoint of marriages and other entanglements. According to the Washington Blade, “The appealing and diverse ensemble cast blends together seamlessly. It’s an effective and inclusive combination of veteran character actors, rising stars and fresh new faces.” Unrated. Available on demand and various streaming platforms. 92 minutes.

– The TruTV show “Impractical Jokers” featured four lifelong friends from Staten Island who competed to embarrass one another with hidden-camera stunts: Joseph Gatto, James Murray, Brian Quinn and Salvatore Vulcano (collectively known as the improve-comedy troupe the Tenderloins). The feature-length spinoff “Impractical Jokers: The Movie” follows the same basic premise, except that the four middle-aged antiheroes are competing against one another for three coveted tickets to a Paula Abdul concert. In the movie, Quinn proclaims he’s having a blast with his buddies, saying: “I’m giggling with my friends. It feels pretty good.” According to Variety, “That about sums up the appeal of this group of merry pranksters whose shenanigans, this film proves, are best enjoyed on the small screen.” PG-13. Available on various streaming platforms. Contains suggestive content, language, some drug references and brief nudity. 93 minutes.

– The documentary “It Started As a Joke” explores the history of the alt-comedy event known as the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival (in honor of its founder and curator, best known as the voice of Gene Belcher on “Bob’s Burgers.”) According to IndieWire, the film – which features interviews with Kristen Schaal, Wyatt Cenac, Ira Glass, Janeane Garofalo, Jim Gaffigan, Mike Birbiglia, Bobcat Goldthwait and others – is “too restless and scattershot to do full justice to any of the comics that it features (delightful as it is to watch the likes of Kumail Nanjiani and John Hodgman palling around backstage). The documentary becomes a much richer portrait when it eventually turns its attention to Mirman himself, and pries its way into his life just enough to use him as a prism.” Unrated. Available on demand and various streaming platforms. 76 minutes.

Are Snakes Necessary?

By Brian De Palma and Susan Lehman

Hard Case Crime. 224 pp. $22.99.

—

Nude photos are used to entrap a Senate candidate in the first 10 pages of “Are Snakes Necessary?” and it only gets wilder from there. No surprise, perhaps, given that it’s co-authored by Brian De Palma, director of “Carrie” and “Dressed To Kill,” and a notorious maestro of violent sexploitation. Written in collaboration with editor-journalist Susan Lehman and first published in France in 2018, this trashy neo-noir thriller riffs on psychosexual obsessions that will be familiar to fans of De Palma’s movies. Pitched in style somewhere between a film treatment and tabloid true crime, this debut novel is silly and uneven, sure, but it’s also fun, a pastiche of hard-boiled crime fiction that doesn’t scrimp on the lurid pleasures of the genre.

Sen. Lee Rogers, the “Hunk of the Hill,” a man gifted with “Columbia Law School dazzle” but compromised by a “zipper problem,” is running for reelection in Pennsylvania. Fanny Cours, an 18-year-old videographer “in the full flush of carnality” and the daughter of an old flame of Rogers, is determined to join the senator’s campaign. Beefing up the supporting cast are ruthless campaign heavy Barton Brock, who’ll do anything it takes to protect his candidate; Nick Sculley, a photographer always on the lookout for a story; and Elizabeth de Carlo (or is it Diamond? or Black?), a jailbird-turned-agony aunt who’ll play anyone for anything. There are also a $5 million Basquiat, a remake of “Vertigo” and some implausible coincidences in the mix.

Jean-Luc Godard maintains, perhaps waggishly, that film tells the truth 24 times a second. De Palma, though, believes the opposite, and “Are Snakes Necessary?” litigates the competing claims. De Palma has spent a lifetime exploring the metaphysics of recording technology and of scopophilia, showing us how observation can deceive as much as it reveals. He has shown us the gaze, the camera lens, the telescope as mediums not just of looking but of participating, of penetrating. Think of “Body Double,” De Palma’s “Rear Window”/”Vertigo” remix, in which Craig Wasson’s voyeur becomes an accidental stooge in a murder case. Or of “Blow Out,” whose central crime is exposed when John Travolta syncs an audio recording with film footage of an accident. In both cases, the passive observer becomes the active protagonist.

Likewise Fanny, who shoots webisodes for the Rogers campaign aimed at revealing the real senator, turns out to be “the antithesis of the fly on the wall.” Fanny comes straight from the Godard school: Through her video work, she says, “I want to see, really see, the truth behind things. The naked truth.” Her more jaded colleagues are skeptical. “The camera is a come-on,” she’s told. “People instinctively flirt with it.” And sure enough, Fanny’s soon involved with Rogers and the campaign videos are starting to tell the wrong story: “Every time he looks towards the camera he’s batting his eyelashes,” her friend points out. Before long, the sinister Brock decides that something must be done about the problem intern.

Many crime writers, notably Elmore Leonard, have found ways of updating the hard-boiled genre while retaining its vim and demotic panache. De Palma and Lehman, while giving their story a conspicuously contemporary setting (Twitter, iPhones, 9/11, Ferguson), have aimed less at modernizing than simply transplanting its styles and tropes to the 21st century. As pastiche, this partly works, but it may have a distancing effect on readers.

“Her stiff yellow apron barely contains her voluptuous curves,” we’re told when we first meet Elizabeth de Carlo, the most fatale of the book’s femmes – and while she may in fact turn out to be an agent of violent female empowerment, there’s something retrogressive about her presentation. Perhaps a hint of cool irony can be detected here that some readers will enjoy, but it feels more like an opportunity missed.

The book’s chauvinistic dialogue is another sticking point. While it’s obviously an intentional stylistic effect, it feels anachronistic to see women labeled “doll” and “kid,” and it’s hard for characters to breathe when corseted by lines like “Now, be a good girl and get dressed.” Elsewhere, melodramatic overtones threaten to tip some scenes into the absurd: “This is a problem for me, Senator,” says Fanny at one point. “It’s a problem because you are married – to someone else.” It certainly lacks Raymond Chandler’s combative dazzle or the stylish malevolence of a James Ellroy.

Still, the chapters zip by with the pace and economy of scenes in a movie, and there are enough good jokes – notably the Chekhovian use of a bottle of perfume named “Déjà Vu!” – and plot twists to pass the time guiltily enough.

—

Arrowsmith is based in New York and writes about books, films and music.

The hero of the 27-year-old Doom series has big guns. He has sharp swords. And he can apparently run at almost 50mph. But these are powers any video game hero can have. The Doom Slayer gives us ever-so-slightly more. He lets us embody the angry will of someone who is sick and tired of going through literal Hell.

More than ever, that feels appropriate. Reddit users in the Doom subreddit had plenty to share about becoming the man famously “literally too angry to die.”

The Doom Guy works because of how he understands the problem he faces, mostly because he’s been through this same issue throughout the ages. While others grapple with questions whose answers elude their grasp, the Doom Marine is unflappable and unwavering. He’s not going to take orders from ineffective leaders who second guess themselves. Nor is he going to be satisfied with a half-measure solution.

“What I like about Doom Guy/Slayer is that he knows that the only way to defeat his enemies is to destroy them entirely,” says Reddit user ShoMibu. “He doesn’t like it that since he has been gone, humankind has been making the same mistake over and over again by manipulating hell, either its resources or making deals. Thus the quote, ‘Rip and Tear till it is done.’ In other words keep doing what you have been doing … to make sure no one gets manipulated.”

Manipulation, after all, is the root of demonic symbolism in Christianity. The Old Testament depicts demons as the architects of chaos, disorder and corruption. Demons are man’s evils. Thus, Doom’s demonic horde could represent anything you damn well please, from political corruption, corporate duplicity, blatant environmental neglect or the ravaging of culture.

“He is as Old Testament as it gets,” Reddit user Snakes_Bandana told The Washington Post.

Doom Eternal continues this grand tradition. Locked away in my apartment during a global quarantine, I screamed, whooped and hollered at my screen. Asked to shelter in place, I found liberation wearing the Doom Marine’s armor. He has few physical limits, and is taking immediate action to solve a problem that’s plaguing the entire world.

The Doom series has always been about one soldier (also known as Doom Guy or the Doom Marine) taking on armies of demons. It wasn’t until the seminal reboot of the franchise in 2016 that his mythos and characterization expanded in scope. If you paid attention to that game’s lore, you’d find out the Doom Slayer is an ancient knight blessed with godly energy to mete out justice against Hell’s demons.

The legend, the story and the lore matter little in the moment-to-moment gameplay of Doom. Doom Eternal gives you no pause to ponder the moralities of the plot or its characters, not when you’re faced with a demonic horde, cowering in fear of the Slayer’s righteous anger. Other characters will prattle on about justifying accessing Hell, or how lives needed to be sacrificed for the good of all. The Doom Guy cares not for background information, and certainly not for any justification.

Doom Eternal has a lot to say about demonic manipulation, backroom deals, and the evils that stem from self-preservation and a thirst for power. The Doom Marine has no name, because the only thing that matters to the player is embodying his resolve to end all of the above.

“Modern games seem to label their main characters as a small cog in a big machine that ‘just so happens’ to have the ability to have a greater effect on the outcome,” writes Reddit user StrangerealSensei. “You feel more invested playing as a character without a name because you can be that guy, so to speak. Controlling a named character somehow removes that connection, like you’re acting out a biography rather than penning your own story.”

Pulling on the boots of Doom Guy made me feel calm and resolute about living in a world where we’re all feeling a little powerless.

“The protagonist in Doom is everything I am not but want to be in another life,” said Reddit user nhcomputergeek. “I think that’s enough of a reason personally.”

The Siberian husky, along with Tayeb’s wife and four children ages 6 to 18, have to keep their distance from him until next week. It’s part of a new policy in Israel requiring anyone who enters the country from abroad to go into a 14-day quarantine. Tayeb, the CEO of software automation company Kryon Systems Ltd., was ordered into quarantine March 6, the day the policy took effect, when he returned to Tel Aviv from a conference for entrepreneurs in Los Angeles. He says he has no reason to believe he was exposed to the coronavirus.

“I can tell you that on a personal level, it’s much more difficult for me,” says Tayeb, who acknowledges he’s a hand-shaking, face-to-face sort of executive. He jokes that he’s used to jet-setting, not just sitting: “I’m used to having some kind of direct interaction all day long, and now I’m having no interaction with people. I’m sitting on my seat for eight hours in meeting after meeting. Even if it’s by video, is very challenging.”

People around the world are adjusting to new mandates, and millions are now under self-imposed or government-ordered quarantines in dozens of countries-16 million in Italy alone-as Covid-19 becomes a global pandemic. The U.S. is now requiring people returning from Europe to isolate for two weeks, as well.

Executives of global operations like Kryon-which has more than 10 offices including in New York, Frankfurt and Singapore-are likely to be caught in those policies because of business travel and forced to stay home. Tayeb is an early example of what life will look like soon for many companies.

The company, which helps automate business tasks, had developed a new protocol for employees who are in quarantine about two weeks ago, and Tayeb is among the first to test it. That’s already leading to changes, he says. One thing that he is adding is a routine of regular personal or group video conferences so that people maintain some sense of a normal routine with colleagues. The company is also buying more equipment so that employees will be fully prepared if they have to work from home.

Tayeb says he’s had to cancel flights to important meetings in London and Singapore, and this is usually the week when he works from the company’s New York City office. In place of his nonstop face-to-face meetings, Tayeb says that he’s adapting to the video conferences “sitting on his seat” instead. It’s particularly ill-timed because Kryon’s software is used by many of the companies that are in crisis because of the virus, such as airlines, and he has less flexibility to meet their needs, he said.

One big conclusion from Tayeb’s experience so far: There’s an adjustment period after an abrupt switch to remote work, even if you’ve planned and prepared.

The isolation is giving him a good primer on what businesses should expect as more countries turn to quarantines. For example, his regional executives are playing a larger role, because he can attend only virtually. He’s also developing more flexible policies, such as letting more cash-strapped customers delay payments by several months to help them get past the crisis as he measures out how it’s changing business patterns.

Mostly, Tayeb said, he’s just trying to make the best of it until he’s released from the restrictions. He’s fueling up on espresso from his Nespresso coffee maker instead of taking a coffee break with staff. When he’s not working, he’s cooking and binge-watching the Formula 1 series on Netflix and getting too much delivery food. Hamburgers and Chinese food are top choices.

He has settled into a routine where stays separate in his office from his wife, children and dog, and when he has to move through common parts of the 11-room house, he warns the rest of the family away and wears a mask, just to be safe. “My dog can’t understand,” Tayeb says. “He comes running to me, and I have to keep my distance. That’s an issue.”

Tayeb thinks that at the current rate of the spread of the Covid-19 virus, all business being conducted may soon resemble his routine in self-quarantine, maybe by the time he’s released next Thursday.

“I believe that in maybe two weeks everyone will be, if not in quarantine, having to do something different,” he said. “We will see the entire work environment will change. A lot of companies can take that in a good way. It might be enriching for them to become more efficient. We can make the best of a bad situation.”

He also said the Khongsittha Muay Thai Training Camp he runs in Bangkok would be closed for one day for cleaning and disinfecting.

Until now.

In “Swallow,” Bennett finally comes into her own as the kind of leading lady who is more than just a pretty face, and can occupy the screen and hold it, with commanding authority. In a supremely canny move, Bennett produced this unnerving, creepily atmospheric thriller, in which she plays a wealthy, somewhat abstracted housewife making a perverse bid for self-determination. Bennett claims her own form of autonomy with the movie itself, which could be read as an actress’ decision to stop hoping for good scripts to arrive over the transom and make her own luck.

Bennett plays Hunter, a meek, carefully coifed newlywed who has just moved into a posh Hudson Valley aerie with her husband, Richie (Austin Stowell). Drifting and dreaming in mid-century luxury, Hunter is a cypher: Her past as a designer is hinted at (she tries to draw at one point, to no avail), and it becomes clear that the privilege that surrounds her is a function of her in-laws’ largesse. For her part, she wears wealth uneasily, if gratefully, not least because her chief duty in the division of labour is … labour, i.e. getting pregnant as soon as possible.

Perhaps it’s because Hunter feels lost or undervalued, or perhaps it’s because she’s just bored, but she discovers a way to create feelings of self-worth and privacy by engaging in a secret act that becomes more perilous as she pushes her body beyond its healthy limits. In the tradition of Todd Haynes’s “Safe,” with a dash of horror films like “The Stepford Wives” and “The Perfection” thrown in for chilly measure, “Swallow” is the hushed, methodical chronicle of a woman’s descent into ever more self-harming extremes, a journey that, in this case, has its roots in patriarchy at its most controlling and violent.

Written and directed by Carlo Mirabella-Davis, who makes an assured fiction feature debut here, “Swallow” isn’t entirely convincing when it comes to the most troubling psychological roots of Hunter’s affliction. But the filmmaker’s tonal control, and Bennett’s confident grasp of the material, make for a compelling portrait of emerging consciousness and, ultimately, liberation. (Her finest scene comes late in the film, opposite the always terrific Denis O’Hare.)

Equal parts quiet and disquieting, Bennett’s performance in “Swallow” should put Hollywood on notice that she’s a force to be reckoned with, on her own unapologetic terms.

– – –

Three stars. Rated R. Contains coarse language, some sexuality and disturbing behaviour. 94 minutes.

Rating Guide: Four stars masterpiece, three stars very good, two stars OK, one star poor, no stars waste of time.

Hanks noted in a statement shared on his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts that he and Wilson, also 63, started to feel “a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches.”

“Rita had some chills that came and went,” he continued. “Slight fevers too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive.” A representative for Hanks confirmed the news as shared on social media.

Hanks is the first American celebrity to publicly announce a diagnosis of the novel coronavirus. His statement was posted across platforms just minutes after President Donald Trump addressed the growing severity of the pandemic, and around the same time the NBA announced it would be suspending its season due to a Utah Jazz player testing positive.

One of the most beloved actors in Hollywood, Hanks’ statement kept with his good-natured reputation. He also shared a photograph of a medical glove discarded in a trash can layered with a yellow biohazard liner, keeping with his social media theme of lost gloves.

Coronavirus has already disrupted the entertainment industry, with numerous projects facing serious production delays over concerns about the virus. Producers of the latest James Bond film, “No Time to Die,” for instance, announced last week that the release date would be pushed to November – seven months after its planned release.

Hanks and Wilson have been married since 1988. They “will be tested, observed, and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires,” according to the statement, which Hanks concluded by reassuring the public.

“Not much more to it than the one-day-at-a-time approach, no?” he wrote. “We’ll keep the world posted and updated. Take care of yourselves!”

As suspected for some time, after a host of leaks and glitches – and seemingly confirmed Monday when a YouTuber posted footage recorded from what he said was an Activision-hosted preview event for Warzone – the new game is a new battle royale that will pit up to 150 players against one another in a massive map. There will be two unique playmodes for the game, which will arrive for Xbox, PlayStation 4 and PC Tuesday.

In addition to the release, early footage from the game found its way online Monday morning when YouTuber Chaos popped it online, apparently ahead of the official embargo time. The footage was removed from YouTube, but we managed to compile details through early views of the video, sources like Reddit and other YouTubers who ripped the footage. It showed much of what Activision later confirmed in its press release, in addition to a few other tidbits.

The game will also be introduced as part of Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare, where mode select screen now has a countdown timer that will zero out at 11 a.m. EDT Tuesday.

Read on below to find out everything we observed from the, apparently accidental, YouTube reveal and what was listed in Activision’s release.

– It’s free to play and cross-platform

Warzone comes at no extra cost, and you won’t need Modern Warfare to play. It’s a standalone experience that differs greatly from Blackout, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4′s battle royale mode. According to the early YouTube posting, you can easily switch from PC to consoles, too, thanks to cross-platform save progression and cross-play. This is a smart move for Activision as it competes with other free-to-play battle royale games like Fortnite and Apex Legends.

– The battle pass and the benefit for Modern Warfare owners

If players are bemoaning the fact that they purchased Modern Warfare only for the BR – which was never advertised or announced by Activision during Modern Warfare’s release – here’s the upside: Modern Warfare owners will be able to port all the content they’ve earned in that game (skins, operators, etc.) into Warzone. Likewise, all progression in Warzone will count for Modern Warfare.

The games will share the same item shop and battle pass. Progress in Warzone will translate to the Modern Warfare battle pass as well.

– 150 players can compete via trios

While Blackout could hold 100 players, Warzone ups the player count to 150. It’s unclear whether this number will increase when it comes to duos and quads. Previous leaks suggested 200 players as the maximum, so there’s a possibility that number rises with a future version of Warzone.

– Looting includes money

Players can collect in-game cash to purchase equipment, killstreaks, or even revive tokens for themselves or to bring back fallen teammates. This can be done at designated “Buy Stations” scattered around the map.

– A new respawn system (and the Gulag)

Unlike most battle royale games, death doesn’t necessarily translate to a lost match in Warzone. A downed teammate can be revived in several ways. Players can spend some cash at a virtual kiosk found on the maps to purchase a token for themselves or pay to revive a dead teammate.

A more interesting dynamic also exists via the Gulag. Players defeated in the main game are “captured” and brought to the Gulag where a victory in a 1v1 fight with another player will grant you a second chance and let you rejoin your living teammates. According to Chaos’s YouTube video, spectators will watch the 1v1s live while they await their turn, and can throw rocks at the battling players or even notify a teammate (if they’re in the fight) of the enemy’s location.

– A mix of old and new locations

Warzone’s map is massive, and appears to match the (extremely low-res) version we saw via the COD Caster mode last month. It contains bits and pieces of maps that have appeared in the series before, including Terminal, Scrapyard, Overgrown and Broadcast. Notably, there are also locales with snow. For traversal, you have a number of vehicles at your disposal, including but not necessarily limited to: an ATV, helicopter, cargo truck and rover.

– Simplified looting and kits

Remember the anxiety of rifling through bags after you drop your foe in Blackout, trying to find the right attachments and ammo while praying you don’t get sniped? It appears that system will instead give way to a Fortnite-like experience where a player’s stash scatters around their body when they drop, allowing you to quickly and easily identify what you want.

All players will drop into the map with a pistol, according to Chaos, and additional guns are found around the map, color coded by power – white is more basic, for example. Also, armor isn’t leveled, as it was in Blackout. Rather players simply grab up to five armor plates to protect themselves, according to the video.

– There are goals beyond surviving and killing opponents

Fulfilling optional missions in a round will grant players upgrades in terms of XP and boosts for their in-game success (rare loot, in-game cash, etc). From the Activision news release: “Contracts are scattered throughout the battleground and are available for any squad to pursue. Completing these contracts gives you in-match rewards including weapons, Cash, XP, and more to instantly gain an advantage over other squads. Whether it’s hunting down a specific opponent in a Bounty or dominating an interest point on the map, there are more ways than ever to be the top squad.”

– Beware killstreaks and the final circle

Using money found in the game, you can exchange it for killstreaks like air strikes or cluster strikes. Chaos noted in his video that this was sometimes unenjoyable late in games, as teams spammed the final circle, which devolved into wave after wave of explosions.

– All about ‘Plunder’

One new mode introduced in Warzone, “Plunder,” is a literal money-grab in which players try to collect as much cash as they can from supply drops, fallen opponents or controlling what the news release calls “cash deposit locations” around the map. This is a respawn mode in which players can customize their loadouts at the start of the match like they do in Modern Warfare’s multiplayer modes. Victory is achieved through “a variety of ways,” which were not detailed in the press release.

The footage has been removed from YouTube now, but we managed to compile details through early views of the video, sources like Reddit and other YouTubers who ripped the footage. Keep in mind that neither Infinity Ward nor Activision has confirmed these leaks as authentic footage from the game, and as an unreleased product, this information is subject to change. But while this is somewhat speculative, the tone of the video and the highly-detailed footage, not to mention the speed with which these videos are being taken down, suggests the validity of the footage.

When does Warzone release, you ask? We don’t know when it’s coming for certain, but the Modern Warfare mode select screen now has a countdown timer that will zero out at 11 a.m. ET Tuesday, March 10. It doesn’t seem like that’s a coincidence. Additionally, Images captured by several users earlier Monday showed a Twitch ad for Warzone on PlayStation Plus, so it appears the mode is incoming shortly.

Read on below to find out everything we observed from the, apparently accidental, YouTube reveal. Again, these are all according to the video, which has not been confirmed.

– It’s free to play and cross-platform

Warzone comes at no extra cost, and you won’t even need Modern Warfare to play, Chaos said in his video. It’s a standalone experience that differs greatly from Blackout, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4′s battle royale mode. You can easily switch from PC to consoles, too, thanks to cross-platform save progression and cross-play. This is a smart move for Activision as it competes with other free-to-play battle royale games like Fortnite and Apex Legends.

– 150 players can compete via trios

While Blackout could hold 100 players, Warzone ups the player count to 150. It’s unclear whether this number will increase when it comes to duos and quads. Previous leaks suggested 200 players as the maximum, so we won’t know for sure until Infinity Ward and Activision break their silence.

– New respawn system (and the Gulag)

Unlike most battle royale games, death doesn’t necessarily translate to a lost match in Warzone. A downed teammate can be revived as long as you spend some cash at a virtual kiosk found on the maps. If you die, you can also revive yourself via escaping from the Gulag. Players defeated in the main game are “captured” and brought to the Gulag where a victory in a 1v1 fight with another player will grant you a second chance and let you rejoin your living teammates. According to Chaos’s YouTube video, spectators will watch the 1v1s live while they await their turn, and can even throw rocks or even notify a teammate (if they’re in the fight) of the enemy’s location.

– A mix of old and new locations

Warzone’s map is massive, and appears to match the (extremely low-res) version we saw via the COD Caster mode last month. It contains bits and pieces of maps that have appeared in the series before, including Terminal, Scrapyard, Overgrown and Broadcast. Notably, there are also locales with snow. For traversal, you have a number of vehicles at your disposal, including but not necessarily limited to: an ATV, helicopter, cargo truck and rover.

– Simplified looting and kits

Remember the anxiety of rifling through bags after you drop your foe in Blackout, trying to find the right attachments and ammo while praying you don’t get sniped? It appears that system will instead give way to a Fortnite-like experience where a player’s stash scatters around their body when they drop, allowing you to quickly and easily identify what you want.

All players will drop into the map with a pistol, according to Chaos, and additional guns are found around the map, color coded by power – white is more basic, for example. Also, armor isn’t leveled, as it was in Blackout. Rather players simply grab up to five armor plates to protect themselves, according to the video.

– You can purchase killstreaks

Using money found in the game, you can exchange it for killstreaks like air strikes or cluster strikes. Chaos noted in his video that this was sometimes unenjoyable late in games, as teams spammed the final circle, which devolved into wave after wave of explosions.